Artist: Hakon Skogstad
Title: Two Hands To Tango
Label: Avantango Records
Genre: Tango/Latin
CD review, by Fiona Mactaggart
Based in Trondheim, Norway, Hakon Skogstad is a pianist specializing in Western classical and Argentine tango. His May 2018 solo piano release, Two Hands To Tango, proves that neither relative youth nor living a great distance from the home of tango, need impede the production of a careful and sensitive tribute to Argentine tango and to the Argentine concertina, the bandoneon, which contributes so much to tango’s distinctive sound.
Throughout, Skogstad’s feeling for the flowing, joyous drama of tango is evident, as is his classical pianism.
Highlights include the lovely ‘Sentimento Tanguero’ with its dramatic coda, ‘Norte’ with its beautiful melody and stately pace and ‘El Marne’ with its light, almost coy touch. However for this reviewer the final piece, ‘Tristezas DeUn Doble’, long at 10 minutes, 36 seconds, was alone worth the price of the CD. Its multiple reference points and absolute sureness of touch strongly suggest that this young pianist might, if he so chooses, move into other musical demesnes, which on the evidence of this beautiful CD can only be welcomed.
